


The Bells of Saint Mary's

by auselysium



Category: Coronation Street
Genre: M/M, reaction fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-06
Updated: 2016-09-06
Packaged: 2018-08-13 10:59:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7974367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/auselysium/pseuds/auselysium
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Todd arrives back on Coronation Street after the failed date at the Malmesbury Hotel with Billy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Bells of Saint Mary's

  
The bells of Saint Mary’s Church toll out the hour as the taxi rolls up to number 11 Coronation Street.

Todd pays, tipping generously, and counts the final peals. _9, 10, 11_...each hollow ring seems to come closer. Passing down its silent judgement. Reminding him far too keenly of what he’s lost.

The moon is full overhead, the streety empty. Silent.

Silent enough that he can hear the crunch of footfalls against the pavement.

The sight of him, head down, hands in his pockets, makes his heart hurt.

“Where you getting off from, then?” _Vicar_. He wants to add it. He wants to throw in that playful name. He wants Billy to smile at him again instead of looking at him with such heartbreak in his eyes.

Billy stops across the road. He clears his throat.

“I’ve been at Eva’s. You?”

“Canal Street,” he answers, honestly.

“Well,” Billy scoffs, painfully. “I’m glad you found someone to fill your needs so readily.”

“You really think that little of me?” Todd yells with an exasperated shrug at Billy’s retreating back. Billy pauses, his head turning just barely over his shoulder to listen. “Because I couldn’t. I never would.”

Billy turns back around, his brown troubled. “But when you left you said…”

  
“When I left I was angry and frustrated and shooting my mouth off. Not exactly an original feat, on my part.”

“But you still went.”

“Yeah, and sat at a bar drinking god-awful whiskey, listening to this terrible band Honestly, I don’t know who does the hiring for gigs these days.” Todd crosses the street slowly.

“And that’s all?”

“I had a rank curry?”

Billy waits.

“And I could have gone home with someone, I suppose, if I’d really wanted to. But I didn’t.”

Billy looks away as Todd steps in close enough to see his eyes glinting in the moonlight.

“Because the only thing I could think about was how good it felt being with you. Even for such a short time, even if we didn’t go all the way...Kissing you, touching you, feeling the weight of your body on top of mine...being that close to someone I love. That’s all I wanted. All I want.”

Billy’s breath catches and he takes a quick step back. “You have no idea what impact your words have, do you? How much they can hurt or...”

“Oh, no.” Todd cuts him off. “No, _that_ I’m fully aware of. I know I my big gob gets me in trouble more than it helps me and I don’t thinking things through and I leap before I look and all that. But the petticoat thing…” He lands his hands on Billy’s shoulders, which tense up under his touch. “Billy, it really was just a joke. But no matter how I meant it, it hurt you. And for that I really am sorry.”

Billy takes Todd’s apology in silence, giving Todd another moment move in close. He takes a risk and encircles Billy’s wrist, his fingers gentle. He kisses his cheek. “Forgive me,” he whispers where his lips had landed and Billy sighs.

“You have to understand that sex is a big deal for me. Not just for Billy the Vicar but Billy the man. I don’t just throw it around to anyone who is offering like some people.”

Todd takes that criticism and his assumed inclusion as one of some people with a grim nod. “Fair enough. You don’t toss around sex the same way I don’t toss around the ‘L’ word and yet here I am using it for a second time tonight, because I love you, Billy.”

The words seem all the louder for their importance.

“But for me sex is part of loving someone. And not just to get my leg over, but to share that intimacy, that tenderness with them and only them.”

Billy’s eyes soften.

“I’m sorry if I pressured you…”

“I was there this afternoon too, you know and that’s not how I remember things being. I wanted to be with you just as much as you did until I got...overly sensitive.” He gestures at himself bashfully, as he blushes. “Look, I know it’s weird and old fashioned to want sex to be important.”

“And it wouldn’t be important for us?”

“No, exactly the opposite, actually. But not everyone I’ve dated has been as understanding about my wishes as you have.”

“I really have been a saint, haven’t I?” Todd grins.

“I wouldn’t go that far.”

Their smiles are hesitant but mutual.

Billy turns his wrist in Todd’s light grasp. He lines their palms together, slips his fingers between Todd’s.

“Come back to mine. It’s not the Malmesbury but I think you’ll find the company just as amenable.”

“You’re sure?”

Billy nods. “But you have to stop thinking I’m some sort of eunuch hiding behind his job and his church, afraid of his own libido.”

“As long as you stop thinking I’m only ever capable of the worst and give me a break when I act like a complete idiot.”

“Deal,” Billy says, sealing it with a kiss.

Hand in hand they walk down the moonlit street, the heels of their shoes light on the cobblestones.

**Author's Note:**

> This is me just trying to work through what might have happened. Monkeying with the spoilers for Wed. 9/7/16 and trying to ignore the spoilers for a few weeks from now.
> 
> Quick crap.


End file.
